Short Narrative (Original, B2)

Telling a story in Afrikaans pulls three grammar systems together at once: the perfect carries the backbone of events, the historic present flashes in to make a key moment vivid, and discourse connectors like toe ("then") and daarna ("after that") stitch the events into a sequence. On top of that, longer narrative sentences stretch the verb bracket — the finite verb early, the rest of the verb late — across more and more material. This page presents a short original narrative (composed for this guide, not quoted from anywhere) and annotates exactly how those systems interlock. Read the story first, then the breakdown.

The narrative

Verlede somer het ons besluit om met die trein na die kus te ry. Ons het vroeg by die stasie aangekom, want my pa was bang dat ons die trein sou mis. Toe ons op die perron staan, het dit begin reën. Die trein was 'n uur laat, en teen die tyd dat hy uiteindelik opdaag, was almal deurnat. Ons het ingeklim, ons nat tasse op die rakke gestoot en by die venster gaan sit. Daarna het die kondukteur deurgekom en ons kaartjies gevra. En toe gebeur die snaakse ding. Net toe die trein wegtrek, hardloop 'n man met 'n hoed langs die perron, hy gryp die handvatsel, hy spring op die trap — en sy hoed waai af in die wind! Almal in ons wa het gelag, en die man het verleë teruggelag. Die res van die reis het ons na die see gekyk en koffie gedrink. Toe ons laatmiddag by die kus aankom, het die son net deur die wolke gebreek.

Translation: Last summer we decided to take the train to the coast. We arrived at the station early, because my father was afraid we'd miss the train. As we stood on the platform, it began to rain. The train was an hour late, and by the time it finally turned up, everyone was soaked. We climbed in, shoved our wet suitcases onto the racks and went to sit by the window. After that the conductor came through and asked for our tickets. And then the funny thing happened. Just as the train pulled away, a man with a hat runs along the platform, he grabs the handle, he jumps onto the step — and his hat blows off in the wind! Everyone in our carriage laughed, and the man laughed back, embarrassed. For the rest of the journey we watched the sea and drank coffee. When we arrived at the coast in the late afternoon, the sun had just broken through the clouds.

The perfect carries the storyline

The default tense for narrating completed past events in Afrikaans is the perfect — het plus a past participle — because Afrikaans has, for almost all verbs, no separate simple past. Where English chooses between "we decided" and "we have decided," Afrikaans has only het besluit, and it covers both. So the spine of the story is a chain of perfects:

Notice het ... besluit, het ... aangekom, het ... deurgekom ... gevra — each event is a het + participle pair. The two exceptions are the verbs wees ("be") and hê ("have"), which keep a real simple past, was and had; the story uses was several times (my pa was bang, die trein was 'n uur laat, almal was deurnat) for background states. (Full detail at uses of the present and past.)

The historic present makes the climax vivid

Now look at the heart of the story, the moment the man runs for the train. The tense suddenly switches to the present:

This is the historic present (sometimes called the dramatic or narrative present): present-tense verbs (hardloop, gryp, spring, waai af) used to narrate a past event. The effect is to pull the listener into the moment, as if it were unfolding live — exactly what English does in "so this man runs up and grabs the handle." Afrikaans uses the device freely and naturally in spoken and written storytelling. The signal that we have left the storyline and entered a highlighted moment is precisely this drop from het-perfect into bare present. Once the climax is over, the story slips straight back to the perfect:

Connectors stitch the sequence: toe, daarna, en toe

A narrative is a sequence, and Afrikaans marks the sequence with discourse connectors. The most important is toe ("then / when"), and it has two distinct jobs that learners constantly confuse:

• toe as a subordinator = "when" (past). It introduces a subordinate clause and sends the verb to the end: Toe ons op die perron *staan...* ("When we were standing on the platform...").
• toe as a main-clause adverb = "then." Fronted, it triggers V2 inversion: En *toe gebeur die snaakse ding* ("And then the funny thing happened") — verb before subject.

In the first, toe = "when" and the clause is verb-final (staan last), so the main clause that follows must invert (het dit begin reën). In the second, toe = "then," fronted, so the verb gebeur jumps ahead of its subject die snaakse ding. The other connectors are simpler: daarna ("after that") and want ("because") thread events and reasons together.

Here teen die tyd dat ("by the time that") opens a subordinate clause with the verb last (opdaag), and again the main clause inverts (was almal deurnat).

The verb bracket stretches across long sentences

The defining feature of Afrikaans (and German, and Dutch) word order is the verb bracket (also called the satzklammer): the finite verb sits early, in second position, but the rest of the verbal material — participles, infinitives, separable particles — is held back to the end of the clause. Everything else in the sentence is trapped between the two. Watch how far apart the brackets can stretch in a narrative sentence:

The finite verb is het (second position). Then a long run of material — and the participles and verbs are flung to the back of each segment: het [...] ingeklim, [...] op die rakke gestoot, [...] by die venster gaan sit. One het opens three brackets in a row; the participles all wait at the ends. (See the clause-final verb for why.)

Again: fronted time phrase Die res van die reis, so the verb het inverts to second position, and the two participles gekyk and gedrink sit far away at the end, the whole object material bracketed between. Learning to feel the bracket — to know that a participle is still owed at the end of the clause — is the single biggest leap in reading and writing longer Afrikaans sentences.

This final sentence puts everything together: a toe = "when" subordinate clause (verb aankom last), inversion in the main clause (het die son...), and a long verb bracket holding deur die wolke between het and the participle gebreek.

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

• Afrikaans narration runs on the perfect (het
  • participle), because there is no separate simple past for most verbs — het besluit, het aangekom — with only wees/hê keeping a real past (was, had) for background states.
• The historic present flashes in at the climax (hardloop, gryp, spring) to make the moment vivid, then the story drops back to the perfect — see uses of the present and past.
• toe has two jobs: "when" (subordinator, verb-final) and "then" (fronted adverb, triggering inversion); plus daarna ("after that") and want ("because") for sequence and reason.
• The verb bracket holds the finite verb early and the participles/infinitives at the end, with everything else trapped between — and narrative sentences stretch that bracket wide — see the clause-final verb.
• A fronted phrase or subordinate clause always forces V2 inversion in the main clause.